Hi Tim:

Thank you very much for posting these trip reports. I will be visiting Morocco in late April, for the very first time, and I am very grateful for the information you have shared.

Concerning liability insurance for the bike - did your existing European policy cover you, or did you need to buy insurance upon entering Morocco? If the latter, is it a simple process?

Michael

Most Spanish policies include green card for Morocco so I was covered. Tanger Med has an insurance booth at the port.

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Mobile phones and Internet in Morocco
One of my first jobs in Oujda was to get a Moroccan SIM for my iPhone so I could use data services on the move.

For most people there's little need to get a local SIM card in Morocco. Many of the cafes have free wifi (pronounced wee'fee) and with my iPhone I can use Apple's Facetime to video call the family and use Whatsapp to send text messages. Neither of these require a local SIM.

If you want to use Google maps you can store the maps that you are interested in on your phone by typing 'ok maps' into Google maps and adjusting the area you want to store. There's a limit as to how big an area you can store, but you can store multiple maps. When you are away from a wifi signal the phone uses its built-in GPS receiver to work out your location and display it on the locally-stored map.

Other popular smartphone apps are MotionX-GPS and TopoProfiler, the latter being particularly useful if you are a cyclist concerned with steep climbs.

Unfortunately you can't store Google Maps satellite views locally on a smartphone, so I wanted a data connection in order to interrogate satellite views whilst in the middle of nowhere. Mobile and 3G coverage in Morocco is extremely good—it helps that such a high proportion of the population lives in rural areas as it means the telecoms companies have installed masts all over the place. The main operators in Morocco are Maroc Telecom and Inwi and as I knew where the Maroc Telecom office was in Oujda, that's who I went with. All the assistants in the Maroc Telecom office spoke English and when we were trying to sort the inevitable problems, it turned out most of the other customers also spoke good English. I can't remember exactly how much I paid for a month of unlimited data, something like 150 dh.

South to Touissite and the Tiouli rail tunnel
I had intended to stop two nights in Oujda to give me time to sort the data SIM but it was quickly resolved, so I decided to head on. I had some difficulty finding unleaded fuel in Oujda, and eventually filled up with high octane. The most boring way to travel south from Oujda would be on the main N17 road, so I decided instead to explore side roads. I headed south east from Oujda firstly to Sidi Yahia Oasis, then on the P6025 to Touissite which has some interesting lead mines that have been in operation since the 1920s.



On the way I came within 500m of the Algerian border again. It seems when France decided the border line, Algeria was given the high ground. In this blown up image you can see the pink Moroccan guard post severely overlooked by the white Algerian post on the top of the mountain.



From Toussite I headed south west towards Tiouli and as the rail line approached the road I went over it and headed north for a couple of km on a rough track to see the tunnel which, according to the sign, was constructed in 1930.



The Oriental Desert Express special train runs on this line once or twice each year



Though there's sometimes problems with sand further south... More photos



Not bad for a low-light snap taken with an iPhone?

I used my iPhone 6 for all the still photography with an HDR (high dynamic range) setting that gives a balanced exposure for both highlights and shadows. None of the photos are retouched in any way, the winter sky really is that blue!

What's great is that the iPhone stores the GPS location of each shot with the photo, so when I upload them to the Macbook I get a little map showing where each photo was taken. No need to write down locations anymore.

Some of the videos later in this report were also taken with the iPhone, but mostly I used a helmet-mounted GoPro Hero.



Most of this region is higher 1000m above sea level, and is described as "Siberian" in the winter time. Yup.

.

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Jerada coal mine and the Cascades Oued Lhay
I continued west from Tiouli, crossed the N17 and made for Jerada which is a pretty town surrounded by spoil heaps.



The region is rich in high-quality anthracite and I stopped to explore some of the mine areas. The mines are now closed and the official story is that this was due to the high cost of extraction, but others say it was to quash a fledgling trades union. Echoes of Britain in the 1980s?



I had a pretty good idea where the river Lhay waterfalls were (N34 13.534 W2 18.185) but getting to them wasn't straightforward and I eventually had to leave the bike and walk the final stretch over a ploughed field.



A nice place for a paddle and picnic in the summer months.

From here I headed south then east to Ain Beni Mathar.

Unleaded fuel shortage
The price of fuel in Morocco is currently around 9.25 dh/litre for unleaded (65p) and 8.35 dh/litre for diesel (59p). Much further south in Morocco's Western Sahara region the fuel is subsidised at less than 6dh for either type.

When I arrived at Ain Beni Mathar I found that neither of the two fuel stations had unleaded petrol. This was a bit of a problem as I didn't have enough left in the tank to make the next fuel station further south at Tendrara. But in remote areas there's always a stash of fuel somewhere and after asking around I acquired 7 litres of fuel. The going rate for fuel from cans is 15 dh/litre but I don't mind paying that if it gets me out of a bind. And 15dh/litre is still cheaper than the UK!

.

For higher resolution photographs and maps check out the original postings at the Morocco Knowledgebase

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Around Ain Beni Mathar
I stayed overnight at Hotel El Gara which was 100dh for a single room. There's a car park opposite with an overnight guardian whom I paid 20 dh. The hotel has wifi but is freezing cold in the winter months so I appreciated extra blankets.

In the morning I went to find the railway station and any signs of the Berguent Vichy labour camp.



Ain Beni Mathar station. According to reports the slaves working on the railway lived in holes in the ground off to the right of this photo, but there's no traces as that area has now been built upon with shacks.



Ain Beni Mathar church is now a martial arts centre. Interesting that the cross hasn't been removed.

'Beni' means the people/tribe/descendents (like the Scottish Mac), and the prefix 'Ain' means spring in Arabic, so Ain Beni Mathar equates to the 'Spring of the Mathar people'. The actual spring is known locally as 'Ras el Ma' or 'Head of Water' and I rode around for a while to the west of ABM looking for it before getting bored. Maybe something for another trip...

French Foreign Legion forts
The N17 heading south is the eastern edge of the Rekkam Plateau, a vast off-tarmac playground. I had a waypoint for a French Foreign Legion fort so headed west on a likely looking track. It wasn't at all difficult to find and indeed there's a new tarmac road—not on Google satellite view—that I could have taken most of the way!



An attacker's view of Bordj Oglet Sedra (bordj means fort).



The fort is in a commanding position with great views over the surrounding countryside.



The forts in the Oriental province were probably constructed just after the First World War and were particularly active until the tribes were finally suppressed by the French in the early 1930s.

Leaving the fort, I started south on an almost totally featureless plain. The tracks were faint, but great fun as I could go where I wanted. I had seen a crossroad of tracks on Google satellite view, saved it as a waypoint and was using that as general pointer to direction.



Although the day was beautifully sunny the temperature was low. I normally wear an open face Jet helmet (Caberg Hyper X) when touring Morocco and had combined it with a neoprene face mask. I was also wearing my electrically heated jacket.

Although I didn't have heated hand grips, my hands were warm enough inside the muffs to enable me to just wear very thin inner gloves. With the mix of high atmospheric pressure and cold the ends of my thumbs develop splits in the skin, but I carry micropore tape to address this.



Rekkam Plateau: there is life out here, but not as we know it.



I knew Borj de Trarite Rhars-Allah, another French Foreign Legion Fort, was somewhere in this area but didn't have a waypoint for it. As I drew near to the piste crossroads I had identified earlier I realised the small fort was right at that junction. Which goes to show that the faint tracks I had been following were probably 100 years or more old.

Tendrara to Bouarfa

Tendrara, the next town to the south, didn't have accommodation so I was intending to stop overnight at Bouarfa, however I needed to refuel at Tendrara and headed off cross country. But guess what? When I got to Tendrara the Ziz station didn't have unleaded and asking around didn't produce cans. The only thing for it was to head for Bouarfa on a very light throttle.



But in the meantime I wanted to visit the site of the Vichy Labour Camp that was situated at Tendrara railway stop, a few km to the east of Tendrara town.



It's thought the buildings on the left were for the Moroccan guards, those on the right for the French. The slave labourers lived under canvas. I found this a thoroughly depressing place and I didn't stop long.



I had planned an off tarmac route from Tendrara to Bouarfa (cyan on the map above), but given the likelihood of running out of fuel I carried on slowly south along the N17. Within 7km my fuel light came on which meant I had about 2 litres in the tank. And according to the km marker posts alongside the road, Bouarfa is 70km away. Well, I used every trick I knew and miraculously got there without having to dig out my emergency 1 litre stig bottle of spare fuel. 11.42 litres went into the tank which meant I had about 0.25 litres spare.

I've been carefully tracking the KTM 690 R fuel consumption on Fuelly. As standard the 690 R has a 11.7-litre tank which worries some owners, who then add an auxiliary tank. However I've found that at Moroccan speeds I'm easily achieving 26 km/litre which gives me a range of 300km. I need to do something about wind protection for the winter months, but have no plans to add an auxiliary tank.

.

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Loving this Tim, I'm off in 2 weeks time, so it's getting the juices going!

If I could trouble you for a few good fossil waypoints anywhere on the pistes between Mezouga Mhamid, beyond Lake Iriqi and into the Anti Atlas, I would be most greatful. I am happy to travel off road but yet to get to grips with deep sand!

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the posts Tim. I have quite often felt like a slave as I've laboured in my cave

Ah, but you have a palace of a cave. And with a wonderful bistro within 100m. Fuente Vera isn't even a one-horse town.

I had a bad premonition, some of the rocks in the rail bed were so large I could see me being bumped over the side. Better to be safe. I still can't work out where the real 'end of the line' is for the railway.

I had planned to approach the viaduct from the north the previous day (on the cyan route). Maybe something for another trip, there's so much to see and do in this area once you start investigating.

.

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)